ABSTRACT
Despite optimism in the early 2010s that al-Qaeda had been defeated and that the Islamist wave of terrorism was declining,1 a new generation has emerged, motivated by many of the same reasons of feeling dislocated from the identity of their parents’ generation and that of their home country. The sudden success of Da’esh (‘Islamic State’) in 2015 instigated a wide range of Islamist terrorist activity in the Middle East and Europe. Young European Muslims, disillusioned with life in their home country or seeking a personal and social identity, travelled to join the Islamist cause in hundreds and thousands. Yet, a significant number of this new generation were not even born when this movement emerged in the 1970s and were only children when, at its height, al-Qaeda launched its attacks on 11th September 2001, or when the US ‘War on Terror’ reached its height of controversy in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The radical Islamist movement, of which Da’esh are a part, suggests a regenerative capacity beyond the typical 30-40-year cycle of similar movements.2
